Santana
Santana III

[Legacy Edition]

In August 1969, Carlos Santana and his eponymous outfit hit the national
stage with a deafening roar by bursting out of San Francisco’s counterculture
via its fiery performance at Woodstock. Released shortly thereafter, the group’s
self-titled debut effectively captured its sonic adventurousness and
successfully laid the groundwork for its future endeavors. The subsequent Abraxus was a stunning masterpiece that commercially was propelled by an
imaginative fusion of Peter Green’sBlack Magic Woman, Gabor Szabo’s Gypsy Queen, and Tito Puente’sOye Como Va, while Santana III,
the final recording by the band’s Woodstock-era line-up, was an equally
magnificent set that brought the collective’s initial sojourn to a fittingly
perfect conclusion.

Reissued for the second time, the newly minted Santana III: Legacy Edition
augments the original album with a trio of previously unreleased studio tracks,
the edited single No One to Depend On, and the entirety of Santana’s
performance at the Fillmore West on July 4, 1971. While it’s true that Santana III truly didn’t break new ground, which undoubtedly explains why it
frequently receives less attention than Abraxus, it was a logical
extension to as well as a refinement of the ensemble’s surreal blend of heady
instrumental jams, soulful pop, and titillating Latin-bred percussion, all of
which was tied together by the prismatic sound of Carlos Santana’s expressive,
liquid crystal guitar. With the funky, rhythmic drive of Batuka providing
liftoff, Santana and his ensemble immediately settled into a high-flying groove
that, thanks the seamless flow of one track into the next, endured for the
entirety of the 41-minute affair. Whether shifting from the sultry shimmer of Taboo into the riveting tumultuousness of Toussaint L’Overture or
from the steamy, jazz-imbued sensuality of Guajira into the ecstatically
writhing Jungle Strut, the songs coalesced around their churning cadences
to become something greater, and taken in full, the collection invoked a primal,
spiritual force that connected Heaven with Earth.

Each of the recently discovered studio jams (Gumbo, Folsom Street —
One, and Banbeye) featured on Santana III: Legacy Edition
serves as a reminder of the startling shamanic power that lay at Santana’s
fingertips as well as the telepathic communication that fueled his band’s epic
sojourns. Good as these tracks are, however, the real highlight of the
collection is the cohesive concert performance that fills the set’s second disc.
Although five of its 11 songs have been available for awhile — Batuka, Jungle Strut, and Gumbo appeared on the 1998 edition of Santana
III, while Incident at Neshabur and a cover of Miles Davis’ In a Silent Way were featured on the 1972 compilation Fillmore: The Last Days
— hearing them in their proper context is an enlightening experience. Employing
the framework of his third outing as a template, Santana and his ensemble tore
through the material with a vengeance, alternating furiously percolating
passages with moments of quiet beauty that frequently foreshadowed the
jazz-fusion-oriented path upon which the group would soon tread. In doing so, he
magically carried his audience across the cosmos while giving the mighty
Fillmore West a fittingly transcendent sendoff.

After the release of his fourth endeavor Caravanserai, which
essentially launched a new phase of his career, the quality of Santana’s studio
output declined. Always eager to explore new ground, he frequently pushed his
material in array of new directions, but too often, his albums were either too
spotty and inaccessible or too enamored with whatever the current trends of
popular music happened to be. Although he also never failed to kiss the hand of
God via his communal concert performances, his recordings almost unarguably
never again came close to the capturing the raw emotion and intoxicating
brilliance of his initial albums, of which Santana III is a prime
example.